


They say love is pain, well darling, let's hurt tonight

by hellcsweetie



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: 4x15, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:20:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28670649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellcsweetie/pseuds/hellcsweetie
Summary: What if Liberty Rail hadn’t taken Harvey’s deal during Intent?
Relationships: Donna Paulsen/Harvey Specter
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	They say love is pain, well darling, let's hurt tonight

**Author's Note:**

> I realize this is an extreme scenario and it probably wouldn’t come to it, but I was really interested in exploring it.
> 
> Thank you to Kelly for her invaluable help. Hope you like it :)

She’s pacing her living room nervously. Harvey told her he’d let her know as soon as he had any news but it’s been hours and he isn’t picking his phone and he does that a lot but it still makes her nervous.

Suddenly there is banging on her door and she rushes to open it. Her stomach flips a bit, because it doesn’t feel like he would take the time to deliver good news in person. An image of her in handcuffs flashes in her mind but she shakes it off, focusing on opening the door and hearing what he has to say.

Except it’s not Harvey at her door. It’s Louis.

“Louis, what are you doing here?” she asks, voice unsure.

“I need to talk to you,” he says, and his tone is weirdly measured. It sends a chill down her spine, and her body fills with dread, but she steps aside and lets him in.

“I have some news and I think you should sit down,” he begins when they’re inside.

“Louis, what’s going on?” she asks again, her hands meeting in front of her to fiddle with each other to stop them from shaking.

“I just came from the DA’s office,” Louis explains, “I was called down there. As Harvey’s attorney.”

Her stomach drops. Why would Harvey need an attorney, he’s _her_ attorney. “What?”

“Liberty Rail didn’t take the offer, Donna. Their witness was going to testify, and with her testimony and the security camera footage, Wolf had everything he needed for a conviction. So Harvey went to him and made a deal,” he goes on, and pratically grimaces when he finishes.

It takes her a second to realize what he’s saying but it hits her like a freight train. “No,” she whispers, her throat dry.

“He told the DA he ordered you to get those documents, and he made a deal for three years in exchange for you walking.”

“What?” she asks again, and his words make sense and they sound completely like something Harvey would do but she refuses to believe it, refuses to accept what she’s hearing.

“He’s being charged with intent to commit fraud, Donna, it’s done,” Louis concludes gravely, and the look of concern in his eyes barely registers as her heart speeds up and tears sting her eyes.

“No. No, he didn’t do anything,” she pleads, shaking her head almost manically, “He didn’t even know about it until it was too late!”

He steps closer, trying to calm her down, “I know, but he told Wolf he did, and he was all too happy to believe him. It was his goal all along, Donna, there was nothing you could have done.”

Panic rises inside of her like a tidal wave and her brain is scrambling to process this information while her lungs struggle to breathe. This cannot be happening, it just can’t.

“Of course there was, I could have pled guilty,” she stands up again and her throat constricts and the room spins for a second.

“Donna, listen to me, he’s okay, he’s gonna be okay,” Louis reaches out for her but she ducks his touch.

“ _Okay_? No, Louis, he’s not gonna be fucking _okay_ , he’s going to p-“ the word dissolves into a sob and she covers her mouth, holding on tightly to the last shreds of her sanity. She swallows dryly and looks around the room, spotting her purse.

“I need to go to him,” she says determinedly as she strolls over to get her things.

“Donna-“

“ _Louis_ ,” she turns around swiftly, but whatever she was going to say dies in her throat as tears well up in her eyes and her lower lip quivers.

Harvey is going to prison and it’s her fault.

Louis nods. “Okay. Okay, I’ll take you there.”

.

The next twenty minutes go by in a blur. Her entire body vibrates as her heart thunders in her chest, her mind numb as she soullessly watches the others car rush by. She’s focused on breathing properly, on not breaking down in front of Louis and his driver, on walking into Harvey’s building with enough composure to greet the doorman and be let up.

By the time she gets in the elevator she thinks she’s doing better, she has a whole eloquent speech prepared where she’ll tell him all the reasons why he’s insane for this and brainstorm solutions.

It all goes down the drain the second she sees his face.

He opens the door calmly, as if he expected her to be here, which he probably did. He straightens up once they’re facing each other properly, but he looks a little guilty for some reason, and that’s what cracks her.

A sob bubbles up in her throat and her bottom lip trembles again. She puckers her lips, trying to stop the wave of emotion, but Harvey’s face softens at that and soon enough she can’t even see him clearly through the pool of tears.

“Donna,” he starts, “It’s not your fault.”

She shakes her head, unable to speak because she knows the second she opens her mouth she’ll let out a noisy sob and the tears streaming down her cheek are embarrassing enough.

“I told you I’d never let anything happen to you. This is me making good on that promise,” he concludes, and his voice is soft and careful but it’s also sure.

It makes her irrationally angry, because it’s not his job to protect her. She doesn’t _want_ him to protect her, not if it means him going to _jail_ because of it.

This somehow helps with the tears, because she swallows them down and pushes past him into his apartment, not willing to have this discussion in the hallway.

“You had no right to do this to me,” she accuses once he’s closed the door.

“Donna, I’m not doing this _to_ you,” he counters patiently.

“Yes, you are! How could you not think about what you going to _prison_ in my place would do to me?” she spreads her arms.

“I did think about that, but I thought it’d be better than you going to jail yourself!”

She’s not sure it is, not at all. He told her the thought of her going to prison makes him want to drop to his knees but the opposite is just as true, and the fact that he’s doing this because of her, because of something _she_ did eats her up like poison corroding her insides.

“You should have told me,” she insists.

“If I’d told you, you wouldn’t have let me do it,” he counters.

“Yes, exactly!” she raises her voice, frustration brimming her words. “If you’d told me we would’ve found another way out, we would have done _something_ -“

“Donna,” he interrupts, voice loud enough to boom over hers, and she quiets.

“He wouldn’t have stopped,” he explains firmly, “He was sure it was me. He would have pressed until you caved.”

“And you think I would have turned on you?” she asks, completely outraged at his suggestion.

“ _No_ ,” he steps closer, hands up in surrender, “But you know how this guy is, you know DAs have a way to make people confess things they don’t want to confess, or things that aren’t true.”

“I don’t give a shit!” she fires back, “I would never, _never_ have turned you in, especially for something you didn’t do!” She can feel her heart racing, her blood boiling at the mere possibility of him thinking she could ever do this.

“Donna, have you ever even stopped to ask yourself how many times I’ve done shady shit like that? How many times I’ve put you at risk?” Harvey finally snaps, running a hand through his hair. “Every single day I put you at risk with Mike. You’ve been on the line for me a million times, even risking jail to protect me, so if I can repay all of that _and_ keep you from going to prison at the same time, you’re damn right I’m gonna do it!”

“Are you even listening to yourself? I didn’t do it to keep a ledger. You don’t owe me anything, and you certainly don’t owe me your freedom!” she insists, feeling like this is some sort of parallel reality where up is down and Harvey’s words make any sense.

“I don’t care, Donna! I’m not letting you go to prison, period,” he replies, voice loud and final.

“And if I go in there tomorrow and tell Wolf it was all me and you had nothing to do with this?” she asks after a beat, masking her absolute panic with defiance.

“I told him you might. It’s written in my plea deal that he’s not allowed to go after you for anything related to Liberty Rail anymore, or the deal is off,” Harvey locks his jaw. He thought of everything, sealed all exits, made sure her instinct to fling herself into the sun to protect him could not be relied upon.

This is happening. He is going to jail.

Her eyes fill up again, all anger melting back into sadness and desperation, her heart in her throat and her knees weakening. Her head is fuzzy and the only thing she can think is _No_.

“Harvey... Harvey, please,” she begs through the tears, and she’s not even sure what she’s begging for - for him to undo this? For him to turn her in instead? For him to turn back time to when she hadn’t committed a crime and he hadn’t made a deal to save her?

He squares his jaw, probably because he wishes he could do those things too, but he can’t, and they both know it.

She lets herself break, hands coming up to cover her mouth. She cries for him and for herself, she lets her guilt invade her.

Harvey watches her for a moment, seemingly unsure of what to do, until he snaps out of it and finally steps towards her, placing his hands on her arms. She doesn’t know if it’s an invitation but she doesn’t care. She’s losing him, and she’ll be damned if she lets anything hold her back.

So she wraps her arms around him, clutching his shirt tightly and crying into his shoulder. Her sobs wrack her frame and he hugs her back, a hand smoothing up and down her back. Neither says anything, the moment too big for words. They never touch, not really, and so being so close to each other, bodies pressed together, feels especially significant.

She doesn’t know how long it takes before her tears subside. Harvey waits patiently, holding her, keeping her sheltered. When they do, she sniffles and lifts a hand to her nose to wipe away the moisture. He pulls back a little, giving her space.

She must look like a complete mess, nose red and runny, eyes puffy and lips swollen. This might be the worst he’s even seen her but she doesn’t care. None of that matters.

He gives her a meaningful look, asking if she’s okay, and the truth is she wants to cry more, but she doesn’t, nods instead.

He lets go of her, moving to the kitchen to get her a glass of water. She makes her way to his couch, plopping down on it and working to normalize her breathing. This situation is completely surreal and she doesn’t know if she’s fully internalized it yet, but she wants to be with him right now.

He brings her her water and she takes it with a shaky hand, gulping down the entire contents of the glass. He fetches her a refill and sets it down on the coffee table in front of her.

“What happened?” she asks quietly. She already knows, but she wants to hear the full story.

“Evan Smith called me a few hours after our meeting. She said she was willing to take her chances with the witness, even if it meant us lying on the stand in our suit. He had us, Donna. With the lady’s testimony and the video footage of you in their archives, he had us, and even if we managed to win the murder case it wouldn’t get you out. So I went to Terrence Wolf and asked him if he’d let you off the hook if I told him you did all that under my instructions.”

He seems calm, in peace with his decision, and she doesn’t comprehend how that can be when he’s going to prison for something he didn’t do.

And then it occurs to her that she’d do the same for him in a heartbeat, and she’d probably feel just as peaceful. Their bond is too strong to rationalize, it’s not just professional duty or friendship. She’s learned to just accept it, and this is another time she must.

“He agreed to three years?” she asks, looking at him.

Harvey nods, “With parole. I could be out in two, maybe even less.”

“Will you be disbarred?”

“I don’t know. Someone might report me to the Bar, but this doesn’t carry automatic disbarment,” he explains.

She exhales shakily, deciding that’s a worry for another time.

They spend a moment in oddly comfortable silence before she sighs heavily and shakes her head, closing her eyes. “Why did you do this, Harvey?”

He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I told you,” he looks down, “I couldn’t let you go to jail.”

“But I did this, I’m guilty,” she insists, though it’s much calmer than before.

“Doesn’t matter. You did what you did to help Mike, you would have done the same for me. You don’t deserve to go to jail for that.”

“And you do?”

Harveh shrugs. “I know my track record, Donna. You know it too. It’s not clean. Someone was gonna get to me sooner or later. I’d rather do this on my own terms.”

“To protect me,” she adds.

“It’s the best reason I can think of,” he replies quietly, voice soft.

A chill runs down her spine and her heart speeds up. She looks deeply into his eyes, clear and certain. It feels like his barriers are down tonight, like his move changed something in the atmosphere.

“Why?” she asks, voice shaking a bit.

He tips his head a bit, giving her a knowing look. “You know why.”

Her eyebrows crease in confusion, and she searches her brain, trying to determine exactly why he would do something like this, why he’d lay himself down on the train tracks for her in such an absurd way. She knows he cares about her, deeply even, but this feels so much more than it’s sensible and she truly doesn’t understand.

So she shakes her head, biting the inside of her cheek, not sure she actually expects an answer.

Harvey pauses, looks straight at her and replies.

“You know I love you, Donna.”

It’s like the world stops and all air gets sucked out of the room.

Her jaw drops and her eyes widen at his words. It’s not that she could never have imagined it - they’re close enough for it to be called love. But what kind of love? They’ve had this discussion before, wading through brother and cousin and friend and lover. It was her deciding back then, and now it’s him, but this feels different. She remembers her despair to negate any semblance of romantic meaning to her words, cheeks still burning from the humiliation she’d suffered on their mock trial stand.

Harvey doesn’t look desperate at all. If anything, he looks completely sure.

She frowns a bit, wondering if it could really be, until he nods minutely. She doesn’t know what led him to admit this so easily, with barely any probing from her. Maybe reality is catching up with him, but his words don’t sound like a deathbed confession. He sounds like he’s just tired of keeping it in.

She doesn’t fully comprehend how, but his meaning is suddenly very clear to her.

Taking a deep breath, Donna leans forward purposefully, holding his cheek and connecting her lips with his. He doesn’t pull back, doesn’t even seem fully surprised, and she takes it as incentive. Her other hand wraps around the back of his neck, holding him close. He straightens up, hands finding her waist.

They kiss freely, deeply, tongues caressing each other. It’s been over a decade since they last did this but there is no rush nor desperation. She knows, intimately, that this is it. This is their fate, sealed forever right here, right now.

His hands travel up her back tenderly to bury in her hair, tilting her head to give him more access. She wraps her arms around his neck, keeping as close as possible.

When they part, their eyes stay locked. It’s intense and hypnotic.

“Are we good?” he asks quietly, clearly needing her reassurance, and she’s suddenly sure.

“I don’t want us to just be good. I want us to be one,” she says, voice low and deep.

He frowns a little, seemingly not following her, but his eyes soon darken with recognition when she shifts to straddle him. Her pants are loose and soft, the kind she wears at home, and his hands glide the fabric against her skin as they find her thighs.

“I want to be yours before you go,” she murmurs almost against his lips, gazing into his eyes and her hair falls around them like a curtain.

“I want to be yours too,” he replies, voice almost entirely oxygen, before he leans up and captures her mouth again.

This time their kiss is hot and pressed, starting teasing, mouths chasing each other, before they give in and their tongues clash.

Donna slides on his lap, brushing their centers together, eliciting a muffled hum from Harvey. He kisses her neck, her clavicle, everywhere he can reach, palms kneading her ass.

She grinds more expertly against him, feeling him start to strain against his pants. Maybe it’s the enormity of the situation Harvey is in, but this doesn’t feel as daunting and Earth-shifting as she always imagined it would. It feels right, like the world just slotted into place and quieted down just for them.

He thrusts into her, making her moan a little, as his hands run up her back, beneath her sweater. She decides she’s had enough of their clothes and makes quick work of his buttons, untucking and pushing his shirt off his shoulders in one movement.

He gets rid of her top as well, hands traveling down her sides as she kneels up and gets rid of her pants. They have no will nor rush to separate totally, so she doesn’t bother getting rid of his pants, just unbuttons it, pulling down his fly and smoothing her palm up the length of his cock, over his underwear.

He whimpers helplessly, brushing her hair aside to suck on the juncture between her neck and her shoulder. His hand travels between her legs and feels the dampness of her underwear, and he exhales. His fingers slide up and down her center teasingly, causing her to buck her hips and trap his hand between them, increasing friction for both of them.

She grinds, pressing herself into his hand and his hand into his cock. He continues his movements, stimmulating them both at the same time, until their breaths are heavy and his moves are urgent.

She lifts off and lowers his boxers just enough to set him free, pumping him a few times as he drills into her hand. He catches the edge of her panties and pulls it aside, unwilling to wait any longer. He positions himself at her center and thrusts.

She lets out a groan, leaning forward to prop her elbows on his shoulders. He’s looking deeply into her eyes again and she holds his gaze, feeling completely connected to him in every way, much more than she’s ever been with anyone else.

She starts moving, sliding up and down his cock slowly, measuredly. Every single inch of their skin that’s touching is on fire, sensations heightened by their emotional state, and it feels magical, completely out of this world.

They barely kiss, mouths just opening around each other, lips grazing, and their eyes stay glued together. It feels like she can see into his soul, and she hopes he knows he’s seeing into hers as well, and it’s all him.

She clenches her core around him and he moans quietly, fingers digging into her hips, hard enough to mark her, and she kind of hopes he does. She’s his, and she’ll carry his marks proudly.

He starts pushing up into her, not really quickening their rhythm but making their joining harder, deeper, making her cry out. He’s looking at her like he never has before, not even during The Other Time. It’s a look of love, of adoration, of a desire burning so bright it could swallow him whole. He’s her future, and she’s his, and they both know it.

Prison, two years, the DA, disbarment, nothing can hold a candle to what they’re sharing right now.

She never really speeds up completely, just enough to feel her body buzzing and his low moans against her chin. His thumb finds her clit, circling it gently, a feather-light touch that has her head swimming in seconds. His moves don’t let up, driving her to the brink until she’s rutting against him and, finally, falling under.

It’s a quiet orgasm, her face contorting in pleasure under his watchful gaze, her stomach contracting in waves and squeezing him inside of her. Finally, she collapses into his shoulder, resting her forehead on his sweaty skin.

She whispers his name and he must take it as incentive, because his arms wrap around her lower waist and he speeds up, pumping into her with abandon. Soon enough he’s spilling inside of her, his warm desire flooding her with a sense of completion she doesn’t fully understand, but welcomes by sliding her hands up his arms and around his neck, one hand coming up to cradle the back of his head.

He nuzzles into her neck, breathing her in as they both cool down. She doesn’t know what is going to happen to him, and it’s still a terrifying reality they’ve found themselves in, maybe even more so now that she has more to lose. But his arms feel safe around her, and his voice is sure when he tells her he loves her again.

She doesn’t know what will happen to them, but she knows with every fiber of her being that she’ll be waiting for him when he gets out.


End file.
